Mahbubul Alam (1 May 1898 – 7 August 1981) was a Bangladeshi writer. He won Bangla Academy Literary Award in 1965 and Ekushey Padak in 1978. Early life Alam was born in Fatehpur, Chittagong on 1 May 1898 to Moulavi Nasih Uddin and Azimunnessa Begum. He was the second son. He secured a job with the Government Registration Department and served until retirement in 1955 as an inspector of registrations. Career In 1917, Alam joined the 49th Bengali Paltan of British Indian Army, He served in the Signal Corps and Mahbub spent about three years at different stations in Mesopotamia (present day Iraq) before being finally released in 1920, when the Paltan was broken up. Works In Bangla prose, Alam is a writer of fiction and historian. His literary works were included in the curriculum of school level, secondary, higher secondary and graduation level Bengali literature in Bangladesh. Novels Mofizon Alam can be said to have written one novella, titled Mofizon, and one novel, Momener Jabanbondi Mofizon is on a theme of the suppressed libidinal instinct in human nature. This short fiction provides a bold treatment of feminine sexual arousal and suppression working simultaneously at a time when Bengali society was not ready for it. It was, therefore, criticised by the conservative section of the Muslim society, but Poet Sufia Kamal, a noted female contemporary writer of Mahbub's wrote very succinctly that everybody blamed "Mofizon"but nobody understood Mofizon's pains. The superstitious male attitude towards marriage and women is also criticised in this novella. Momener Jabanbandi Mahbub's most well-known work, translated into English by Lila Roy as The Confession of a Believer is a novel—as the title suggests, on autobiographical elements—that portrays the central character as having gone through the continuous biting of the conscience mainly on moral grounds. As is Mahbub's habit to approach critical issues, the beginning of the novel contains a fictional discourse run by the child-protagonist about the existence of God. The later part of the novel shows the adult-protagonist as having overcome the temptation of seductive attractions from a married woman. This novel is rich in Mahbub's style of writing in bold, clear and precise sentences. Short story collections Tajia A collection of short-stories, which mainly deals with religious bigotry, while Pancha Anna (meaning a co-mixture of themes), another volume, which has short stories dealing with supernaturalism, famine, domestic affairs and marriage. After his death, four